


Wash Me Away

by darkseiros



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Drabble Sequence, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Oral Sex, Sex, Spoilers for Ethereal Moon, multi-chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-19 11:10:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22010056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkseiros/pseuds/darkseiros
Summary: Byleth is hurting in the wake of the events during the Ethereal Moon. She seeks comfort from her fellow faculty at Garreg Mach, who each find themselves strangely attached to and intertwined with the mysterious new professor.((set during month of Guardian Moon & contains spoilers for chapter 9 Ethereal Moon))
Relationships: Hanneman von Essar/My Unit | Byleth, Manuela Casagranda/My Unit | Byleth, My Unit | Byleth/Rhea
Comments: 1
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER ONE**

* * *

  
  


Even as the rain began to pour down harder onto her body, Byleth sat unflinching in the courtyard of the chapel. She was holding Jeralt’s hand—once warm, now cold. She squeezed it gently, running her fingers across the rough calluses that had hardened over the years he fought bandits and wielded his weapon du jour. She traced her fingers across the curve of his palm, remembering how he held her when she was a young child and the few times he had rocked her back-and-forth to sleep when she was afraid of their new surroundings. She folded her fingers into his, for the first time in a long time. As well as the last time. 

Byleth wasn’t paying attention as someone came up behind her, waiting in the shadows. Her guard was completely obliterated. It could have been Thales, coming back to finish her off in line with the big "plans" he had in store. It could have been the Flame Emperor, who surely was somehow involved if that swift, purple teleportation was any indication. But instead, a light, gentle hand rested on Byleth's back, warming the chill that’d begun to spread throughout her entire system.

“My dear, dear professor,” a voice murmured. Byleth looked up, still in a trance, to see Lady Rhea crouched next to her, dress and crown dripping in the downpour. Lady Rhea blinked, and Byleth blinked back. 

And then Byleth’s head was resting on the Archbishop’s shoulder as she cried— _really_ cried, more so than she had before. If that were even possible. Jeralt’s body lay abandoned as Byleth cried, moving to wrap her arms around Lady Rhea's neck. It was a strange sensation for her, to crave human contact like that. It normally wasn't a priority to her. But she needed it now; she needed to absorb the warmth that radiated from the other woman’s body. She needed to be held and to cling on to someone else. 

If she were startled, Lady Rhea showed no indication. She simply wrapped her own arms around the blue-haired woman, holding her tightly and rocking her gently as the rain continued to consume them both. 

Somehow they ended up back at the monastery. Byleth was tucked into a soft, warm bed—one of the infirmary beds, she’d determined. Her eyes were drooping and she struggled to stay awake as she heard people talking just outside.

“Oh, goddess!” Manuela had exclaimed. Her voice was almost shrill. “He really just… And she was…”

“Yes.” That was Lady Rhea again. _So she's still here,_ Sothis thought vaguely for the both of them. Byleth again fought back an intense pang of sleep. _Did someone give us a potion…?_

_"_ It is devastating for all, especially our professor. I ask that you care for her in my stead, Manuela, as I must see to urgent matters of security and investigation."

“Of course, Lady Rhea.”

And then Lady Rhea was gone, Manuela's heels clicked over the wooden floor, and Byleth finally succumbed to the ebbs of sleep filtering through her consciousness.

* * *

“Professor.”

It was daylight, and everything hit Byleth at once.

She felt her face drop and her eyes well again as she remembered what had happened. A flash of red hair and a small, silver dagger flooded her vision. Her right hand flexed as she recalled turning back the hands of time and whipping her sword at the girl, only for a dark mage to intercept her swing and thrust the force of her sword back to her. She stumbled and watched the blade sink deep into her father’s flesh and into his beating heart.

And then she felt a soft hand on her forehead. Opening her eyes, she saw Lady Rhea kneeling close to her, turquoise eyes glistening with deep, shining pain as her hand moved to brush over Byleth’s hair.

“Oh, dear one,” Lady Rhea crooned, her voice light and her breath warm as she continued to run her fingers across Byleth’s face, grazing down at her cheeks that still bled with tears. “I am so sorry. Words cannot express how sorry I am for your loss and for your pain. I wish I could take it all away for you.”

As Byleth closed her eyes to again succumb to the sleep that ached her so, she heard the light hum of a song:

_In time’s flow.... See the glow of flames ever burning bright…_

* * *

Hanneman was old, but Byleth didn’t care. She’d entered his office under the pretense of having questions about her crest, and it soon turned into her sitting in the dip of the crest analyzer with her legs spread open and Hanneman’s tongue inside of her.

It felt good. _Goddess,_ did it feel good. He knew what he was doing and Byleth preferred tongue to dick as it was. His tongue danced around her clit in an oh-so teasing manner, allowing her to feel just a brush of pure pleasure before it calmed down again to a general hum of warmth and exhilaration. She let out a moan, and that seemed to only encourage him even more. That seemed to be a pattern with men, she’d noticed, but she didn’t think too much about it as she rested her hand on his head and pushed him even closer to her.

This was a way to forget. This was a way to live beyond the pain of what had happened. As her toes curled and she pulled at the hair on his head, she couldn’t remember any other feeling but the breathlessness she felt in that moment. 

* * *

  
  


“Thank you for seeing me,” Lady Rhea greeted as Byleth knocked and entered the Archbishop's personal quarters.

Her chambers were warm yet cold, filled with pristine furniture that was absolutely spotless with the air of hardly being used. Byleth nodded and entered, watching as Lady Rhea moved over to the door and closed it, lingering for a moment with her back turned to her before she finally faced her.

The expression on Lady Rhea's face was something Byleth had never seen in the woman before. It was at once sad yet comforting, longing yet distant. It vaguely reminded Byleth of something she couldn’t quite name. A distant memory of sorts. Was it even Byleth's memory? She didn't exactly know. Lady Rhea closed the distance between them, being closer in proximity to Byleth than she’d ever been before. And Byleth felt her breath hitch. 

_Watch out for Lady Rhea._ Jeralt’s voice reverberated through Byleth’s mind just then. _Don’t trust her. She’s up to something._

Yet there she was, standing so close and smiling so sweetly at her, the faint scent of roses swirling in the air. And there Jeralt _wasn’t,_ for he’d been slain, and no one—not Lady Rhea, not Byleth herself—had been able to save him.

Lady Rhea moved closer, and without thinking, Byleth moved closer, too, leaning in.

“I’m glad you came,” Lady Rhea breathed, her face only a couple inches away from Byleth’s. “I didn’t know if you would.”

All Byleth could do was nod, aware of Lady Rhea staring at her hair and her face, a contained hunger twisting her features before vanishing almost as quickly as it had appeared. Byleth wondered if she had simply imagined it.

Lady Rhea stepped closer, her smile so gentle and serene as her turquoise eyes locked with Byleth’s. In that moment, Byleth felt a sense of security wash over. Here she was, with a holy and radiant and benevolent woman who would move heaven and earth to take away Byleth’s pain. In a world where mysterious dark mages teleport in and out to stab and destroy people’s lives, Byleth lived here, with Lady Rhea and the Church who were sworn to protect them all.

Byleth didn’t consider herself a religious person. She didn’t know much about religion at all, if she were to be honest. Her father had never mentioned it before. She understood that the concept existed, but it didn’t feel connected to her. It wasn’t until she and Jeralt arrived at the Monastery that she learned about the extent of the Church of Seiros, and what the legends were and who the Goddess was and what they were all supposed to stand for.

_What_ **_do_ ** _I even stand for?_ Byleth wondered, still aware of Lady Rhea’s close proximity and the sweet scent of her body spinning all around her. _Am I still searching for the truth shrouded in a cloud of lies?_

“Are you alright?” Lady Rhea asked softly, kindly, _knowingly._ Byleth came back from her thoughts, again taken in by those glittering eyes. 

“No.” Byleth’s voice was low, and Lady Rhea murmured sympathetically as she leaned in closer, placing a hand on the side of the blue-haired woman’s head.

“I know.” So gentle, so...comforting. “I know, dear one.”

And then they were wrapped in an embrace again, much like the one they had shared that first night in the rain and in the darkness. Byleth moved her arms to wrap them around the archbishop’s back, and then Lady Rhea moved hers down lower, loosely hugging Byleth’s hips. A jolt went through Byleth just then, as the other woman’s body and warmth consumed her and she felt as if she were falling, _falling_ deeper into her trance.

“I want to take away your pain,” Lady Rhea said, and not for the first time, as Byleth had recalled. “I want more than anything to help you feel better.”

* * *

  
  


“Are you sure about this, Professor?” Manuela was panting as Byleth lay pressed against her on the bed in the infirmary, her still-gloved hands moving to hitch up Manuela’s skirt.

“Quite sure,” Byleth nearly growled back, tearing Manuela’s underwear down her legs and replacing it with the palm of her hand.

“ _Ohh,_ Professor!”

Manuela was a talker, Byleth realized, and thus crushed her mouth to the songsress’s face. She wasn’t here to talk. It’d been a few weeks since the incident at the chapel, and Byleth didn’t find herself feeling any better. She still wept at night, the image of Jeralt’s life vanishing from his eyes filling her dreams, her thoughts, her very vision. No amount of talking about it helped. Only this. 

So, she didn’t want to talk; she didn’t want to think or to even _feel_ sometimes. And it probably wasn’t fair to Manuela, but at the same time, Manuela didn’t have to oblige. She knew _exactly_ what Byleth was doing. When Byleth had knocked on her door and then stared deep into her eyes, the hunger practically devouring the older woman’s body right then and there, Manuela had let her in. She'd accepted Byleth’s lunge, moved with her as they putzed backwards to the bed. She opened her legs wider and wider now, as Byleth swatted at her entrance before shifting to place her mouth at the center. 

For one who so brazenly and lustfully droned on and on about men, Manuela moaned and shrieked in ecstasy now with another woman, whose tongue and fingers did things to her she had never felt before. Her hand urged insistently at Byleth's head, taking care to stroke a few strands of her blue hair before yanking them closer to her body. High-pitched moans spilled freely from her lips. 

Perhaps their mutual loneliness and despair is what brought them together tonight—two sides of the same coin, looking for love and a means to forget all of the pain that haunts them.

And, Byleth thought as Manuela moved to pull Byleth's body against her and to feel up her breasts, it wasn't like she was going anywhere anytime soon. If she were to live here at this monastery that her father dragged her over to, then she might as well do what she can with who she's got to drown out the pain of his memory. 


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

* * *

It was the Inter-House Reception in the dining hall, and Byleth didn't know what to do. 

All of the students and the faculty were there, coming together to share meals and break bread and join in community. Students from all three houses sat together on the benches, differences put aside for the moment as they bantered back and forth about their training, hobbies, lessons, and secret crushes. Boys and girls alike mingled; commoners and nobles joined forces. Everyone seemed so happy. So at ease. Everyone except Byleth. 

It was still too soon for her. Jeralt had been gone almost a month, and Byleth still had a hard time feeling and caring about things. It was strange, really, to have lived a life so stoically and so indifferently and then to finally feel overwhelmed with an onslaught of emotions. It was like these feelings had all been there, bubbling beneath the surface and waiting for the right moment to come out. And the right moment was here and now, at the monastery. Without Jeralt.

"May I sit with you, Professor?" 

_ Oh geez.  _ Manuela had come over to her, eyes shining and eyelashes fluttering as she set her plate down on the table and then scooted closer to Byleth. Their thighs were brushing. Warmth flowed between the two of them.

Oddly, Byleth…liked it. She felt excited, actually.  _ Sexually _ excited. Part of her had worried her fling with Manuela would ruin her relationship with the songstress and leave her terribly awkward and solitary for ages, but perhaps it didn’t have to be that way. If the way her body was reacting was  _ any  _ indication, perhaps this fun didn’t have to end.

Perhaps this could be more of a permanent distraction.

The students continued to gather their meals and sit with one another, moving to play card games or sit and laugh when their meal was over. Byleth and Manuela sat quietly together at their end of the table, moving even closer until their bare skin of their legs was rubbing against each other.

“Want to get out of here?” Manuela panted, her breath whispy and her tone impatient.

“I thought you’d never ask,” Byleth breathed in response, and in a flash they were off toward the second floor, their feet mere inches away from one another.

* * *

Rhea, meanwhile, was different.

Byleth wanted her,  _ needed  _ her. In more ways than one. She found herself inventing excuses to visit the Archbishop, who was everywhere yet still strangely out of reach. Byleth had to report on the bandits she and the students had chased away from the monastery. She was concerned about the Archbishop’s safety and wanted to confer with her on security measures. And at one point, she even said something closer to the truth: she just simply needed to talk to her because she was upset.

“What is bothering you, sweet girl?” They were in Rhea’s bedchambers. They’d been playing this game and dancing this dance for a while now, smiling at each other in the halls and letting their glances linger when they didn’t think the other was looking; blinking and blushing across the room during meals and staring focusedly during church sermons.

Yet here they were. Two weeks prior, Byleth stood here in this room so close to her, simply hugging her and nothing else. This time, she wanted and needed more…but was afraid to ask, per usual. 

While it was easy to fuck the other faculty like rabbits, it wasn't quite as simple with the Archbishop of the Church of Seiros. Understandably, things were more... _ delicate. _

Maybe their time would never come. Byleth proceeded to talk about her feelings again, about losing her father and never getting to know her mother and feeling so utterly alone. Lady Rhea listened, as she always had, nodding along and murmuring sympathetic sounds as her hands would occasionally brush the side of Byleth’s head.

Maybe this could be enough. Maybe it had to be.

* * *

“Professor!”

Byleth blinked as Lady Rhea approached her, the layers of her gown flying in the wind as she charged forward. In the glint of the slowly-setting sun, she looked majestic, regal—like the goddess herself. 

There had been an unexpected ambush of monsters right outside the monastery walls, preying upon a gaggle of first-year students caught entirely unprepared with no means to protect themselves. Luckily Byleth had been walking nearby on her way back from a patrol, the Sword of the Creator at her side and ready to slash the beasts. But they were many and Byleth was only one. At first she’d faced one, but then two, and herds upon herds more. The time had finally come, it seemed, that Byleth faced a challenge she could not overcome. 

And part of her had known that as soon as it happened, but she did so anyway. For the students. And maybe because part of her no longer cared if she lived or died. 

Byleth collapsed to the ground as Lady Rhea reached her. She let out a groan as her head hit the hard, rocked surface, a particularly sharp point stabbing its way deep into her cheek. Byleth felt the sting and slow trickle of blood fall down. It burned for a moment before it evaporated, for Lady Rhea had lifted her head and pulled her closer to her.

“Everything will be alright,” she told the professor, her hand moving to brush away the grit and blood from Byleth’s pale face—paler than it usually was. She then turned to caress Byleth’s cheek. Byleth’s eyes were still shut, but she felt the other woman’s steady back-and-forth movements and felt oddly at peace.

When Byleth opened her eyes, she was in Lady Rhea’s bedchambers, a place she had been before but never  _ in _ the bed.

“You’re awake.” Lady Rhea was sitting in an armchair beside the bed, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes glimmering in the faint light of the fire. “How are you feeling?”

Byleth went to lean up and then gasped as a wave of pain shot through her abdomen, sharp and fierce like the tip of her own blade.

“Not too fast, Professor,” Lady Rhea tisked. She stood so that she was leaning over Byleth, re-adjusting the blankets and gently pushing her head back down on the pillow.  _ Is she...taking care of us?  _ “Your wounds were severe, and they will take some time to heal. You need to rest. We can’t have you overexerting yourself and getting hurt again, can we?”

_ Had I really been hit that hard?  _ In the time it took Lady Rhea to fluff her pillows, Byleth tried to think back to what had happened. A swarm of beasts. Wolves, birds, snakes, and reptiles. They each have their own strengths, Byleth and her students had found out, and they each packed a harder punch depending on whichever person’s weakness they exploited. And to have them striking all at once…

—but— 

“The students,” Byleth rasped. “Is everyone—”

“Everyone is fine,” Lady Rhea cooed, moving from smoothing down the pillows to smoothing down Byleth’s hair. “You saved them. Thanks to you, they’re alive and well, eating dinner in the dining hall with the rest of their classmates.”

“Unlike my father.”

Byleth didn’t know what made her say that. It came entirely out of nowhere. She wasn’t one to let her feelings fall out like that, to so casually betray the depths of her heart. Lady Rhea’s fingers slowed as they continued to weave through Byleth’s hair. There was a strange, affective switch, and Byleth felt her eyes well up again, as they had been for so long. 

For it was true. Byleth had saved them, those nameless, faceless first-years who had desperately needed her help. Yet Byleth had been unable to save her very own father, who’d raised her and taken care of her for as long as she could remember. What kind of savior was she? How could she  _ truly  _ be anything akin to heroic?

“It’s alright to cry, darling.” Lady Rhea’s voice was barely a whisper, and it felt much, much closer now. Byleth was afraid to turn around and look, but she could tell the Archbishop was near.

“All I’ve been doing is crying,” Byleth dared to respond. She didn't know why she kept this conversation going when usually she’d nod and move on with her day, ignoring her feelings. She also felt self-conscious at the number of times she'd come to the Archbishop for solace, how often she'd rattle on about her feelings in sometimes genuine ways but sometimes as a means to cover up her true intentions. 

Something felt different this time, though. Byleth felt safe, strangely enough, in a world where none of them were ever truly and actually safe from the threats that loomed in the shadows. And she felt something deeper with Lady Rhea. 

“Cry as much as you need.” Byleth felt the springs of the mattress shift. She opened her eyes to see Lady Rhea half-laying on the bed beside her, crown gone and eyes glued intensely to hers. “When you’re here with me, there’s no need for pretending. You can cry. You can yell. You can hurt. You can hide from the world. You can be free.”

_ You can be free…  _ Somehow, Byleth felt like those words meant something else that Lady Rhea wasn’t saying. The woman’s eyes continued to spark with intensity as she resumed stroking Byleth’s hair, one strand at a time in light, rhythmic movements.

This was it. It was time. Byleth could  _ feel  _ it.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> I was taken with how distraught Byleth was in the aftermath of these events and my mind wandered here... Let me know what you think and if you think I should continue it / where I should go with it! :)


End file.
